Friday, April 4, 2014

Personal work: Pixies for Sale, revised

(click for larger version)

I made the illustration on the left back in January. Recently I was reevaluating my portfolio, and considered including this piece. However, I noticed that it looked a bit messy and shabby when placed next to my other paintings. I opened it up in Photoshop and peered at the details.

"Geez, this is messy," I thought. How did I allow myself to think this was finished? Did I seriously post this online? Where people could SEE IT?

So I spent a few hours polishing the details on this piece, as well as pumping up the contrast and saturation. This has caused me to go through a few other old pieces and thinking about how I can improve them. I'll post some more of these before-and-afters on the blog later.

Great job on the revisions! I oftentimes feel the same way when I review older work that I posted online. I think it has something to do with the feeling of being done and completed with the piece, and possibly from having looked at it for too long, that you don't see all the missing pieces because they still exist in your head.

This is such a great piece Kelley! You should do a print of it. (And your "messy" version looks awesome. If I could get my paintings to look messy like yours I'd be doing O.K.!). Looking forward to seeing more of your revisited pieces.-Will